A Blog About Food & So Much More

Beer ‘N’ Brat Pasta ‘N’ Cheese

As a Wisconsinite of German descent I am obviously a lover of brats, among other delicious sausages. Californians, I guess, are not sausage people. While Italians and various chicken sausages are easy enough to find, good Chorizo has proven rather difficult and when purchasing brats we must settle for some very over priced Johnsonville variety. Don’t get me wrong, Johnsonvilles are perfectly adequate, I just miss the varieties of fresh made-in-house sausages you can get at a Wisconsin meat market, or even a supermarket like Festival Foods.

A few weeks ago Johnsonvilles were on sale and I picked up some brats because it just feels right to have some in the freezer, just in case. We pulled them out this past weekend when the possibility of grilling out at a friends came up, but that fell through and as we do not yet own a grill [I know! Shame on us!] I looked for an alternate way to serve up those babies in an appropriately Wisconsin style. The result was a very tasty adaptation of mac and cheese.

I started by searching on pinterest for a homemade mac and cheese recipe that included beer, because I felt that would add to the whole “awesome Sconnieness” of the dish. This one fit my requirements and the original poster is clearly using Leinenkugel’s so I instantly liked her and looked no further. The two biggest changes I made were obviously adding bratwurst and also using penne instead of macaroni, since I could not find anything of the sort at Trader Joe’s. Here’s the recipe with my adjustments noted:

Easy Beer Mac and Cheese

serves 4-6

2 1/2 cups uncooked whole wheat elbow noodles (as I mentioned, I used Penne and it turned out fine)

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons flour

8 ounces milk

8 ounces beer (sadly TJ’s is also lacking in WI beers so I used Mission St. Brown Ale )

8 ounces freshly grated cheddar cheese (we go with the sharpest we can find, which is usually still pretty mild to us)

4 ounces freshly grated parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

pinch of black pepper (I may have accidentally dumped in several pinches, and it may not have been peppery enough. If you like your spice I’d say go with at least a 1/4 tsp here, too)

pinch of nutmeg

1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

10 large basil leaves, chopped for garnish (um, we just garnished with extra bratwursts… the Epic Meal Time guys would be proud)

and speaking of… 3 bratwursts par boiled in beer and sliced into medallions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Prepare water for pasta and boil according to directions, shaving 1-2 minutes off of cooking time since pasta will continue to cook in the oven.

Heat a saucepan over medium high heat and add butter. Once melted and sizzling, whisk in flour to create a roux and cook until bubbly and golden in color, about 2 minutes. Add milk and beer into saucepan whisking constantly, then add cheeses and stir until melted. Turn heat down to medium and continue to stir, cooking for 5-6 minutes while mixture thickens. It will most likely NOT thicken like regular mac and cheese because of the beer, but you want it to thicken a little bit. Stir in pepper, paprika and nutmeg.

(Here’s where I added the brats to the cheese sauce before pouring on noodles. In the future I’d probably mix the brats with the noodles before adding the cheese, but it really makes no difference)

Add cooked and drained noodles to a casserole dish, then pour cheese over top, mixing gently to combine. Top with panko bread crumbs and an additional sprinkle of cheese if desired. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until bubbly and golden on top.

Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes, then top with fresh basil (or the pan fried extra brats).

I especially loved this dish because it tastes like Wisconsin in a bowl. It would only have been better if the weather had been less California sunshine and more Wisconsin gloom, warm comfort foods such as these taste better when its blustery outside, but I guess we can survive the sun.